Discussion of public health and health care policy, from a public health perspective. The U.S. spends more on medical services than any other country, but we get less for it. Major reasons include lack of universal access, unequal treatment, and underinvestment in public health and social welfare. We will critically examine the economics, politics and sociology of health and illness in the U.S. and the world.

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Incomprehensible

All the tens of billions invested in terrorism preparedness have purchased exactly what? Presumably a dirty bomb or dispersal of anthrax spores or VX in a city center would produce a whole bunchof refugees who needed evacuation, water, food, shelter. Presumably it occurred to someone that terrorists might break a dam or a levee somewhere, disable parts of the power grid, contaminate the water supply. Those sorts of possibilities are presumably what the Department to Defend the Holy Fatherland was getting ready for with all that money we've been borrowing from China.

So why is this happening -- three days after the disaster?

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (CNN) -- Thousands of people forced from their homes by Hurricane Katrina have crammed into the New Orleans convention center, where they've had no food, no water and no word on when help would come.

And people are dying.

CNN's Chris Lawrence described "many, many" bodies, inside and outside the facility on New Orleans' Riverwalk.

"There are multiple people dying at the convention center," he said. "There was an old woman, dead in a wheelchair with a blanket draped over her, pushed up against a wall. Horrible, horrible conditions.

"We saw a man who went into a seizure, literally dying right in front of us."

People were "being forced to lived like animals," Lawrence said -- surrounded by piles of trash and feces.

He said while he has seen police SWAT teams drive by in armored vehicles, no one has stopped to talk with the refugees.

"People are asking, 'Where are the buses? Where is the plan? Where is the help?" he said.

More people were arriving at the center, walking south along Canal Street. The route north to the Superdome is blocked by chest-deep water.

Oh yeah. The president just got back from vacation. He's only had a few hours to take personal charge of the problem. That must be it.